Ousmane Dembélé is riding the best season of his career and it shows. 33 goals, 15 assists in 49 games. Ligue 1 Golden Boot. Champions League Player of the Season. A quadruple winner with PSG. I can see he is leading the Ballon d'Or polls and odds, even overtaking Yamal.
Yamal? wowh, afaik he has done 17 to 22 La Liga goal involvements, outstanding dribbling, international playing experience. However lacks the award and high voltage match dominance Dembélé's shown.
So battling come out as Youth vs Redemption. Class vs results. Do you wanna know my pick? Dembélé for impact & Yamal for the future, this is Ballon d'Or redux.
In my opinion Yamal is not in the race at all, the only reason he is in the top 10 is PR. Remember how Mendes destroyed him? Yamal is good when the team he plays for is good, I don’t see that he can be a leader, other players besides him make the results, but because of PR everyone talks about Yamal.
Dembele is the obvious leader, but there should be many others like Mendes, who are ignored by the PR machine, but who are producing results and have also had a great season.